My solution to the gender war is as follows. Take neither side. Anything human - male or female - is capable of choice. Anything capable of choice can be good or bad. It makes no sense to take side of women against men. Nor does it make sense to take side of men against women. It makes sense to take side of good men and good women against bad women and bad men. I was once with a very good woman who had for 15 years been with a terrible man. She had a brother who was a good man, who was married to a terrible woman. I was just as willing to support him as I was to support her, even though as a straight man I had no attraction to him. Recently I had a conversation at a bookstore with an economics professor who had a very kind look on his face. A very mean-looking woman came up glaring at me - obviously his wife. Why do so many good women wind up with bad men? Why do so many good men wind up with bad women? I have no idea as to why. My tentative explanation is that nasty types learn since a very early age how to get their way, and they use these skills to con better people of other gender into being with them. With Third Wave feminism, what we have seen is women taught to be horrible people. These horrible women then appropriate for themselves the attention of men who have goodwill toward women. This attention is then denied to women who actually merit it. The horrible women then lord it over their betters, as they have the good men, while the better women are stuck with brutes and scumbags. They then teach other women to be like themselves, while attacking in other women better personal qualities. Whether your idea is that men are abusive or patriarchial or destructive, or if your idea is that women are stupid or evil or immoral or wild or of the Satan, you are going to be a scoundrel as a function of those beliefs. You will get whatever you want out of the people of the other gender without compensating or treating them according to what you are getting from them. You will justify yourself in disgusting behavior by claiming that your partner - or other gender - is evil. Whether or not your partner is evil, they have ways to go before they can be as evil as you. A person who is good will treat the partner according to what they are getting from them; and whatever you think of the other gender in general - or of your partner in particular - then you are obligated to be good to them whatever you believe them - or their gender - to be. Imagine the situation of a person of good intentions who winds up with someone who has such beliefs. The person loves the partner; yet the partner goes on being nasty or brutal. The partner attacks the person, whatever the person does. However good one seeks to be to the partner, one is under attack. What kind of hell and confusion does one live in? I've had such situations in my life, as have any number of women I know. And in all such situations, the correct response is to say, (*)(*)(*)(*) you. If you get things out of the relationship, you are obligated to treat your partner rightfully whatever you think either about them or about their gender; and if you are not, then you are exploiting your partner. And exploiters have no right to moral arguments. More people - men and women - of good intentions should say (*)(*)(*)(*) you to the people who treat them like garbage. Let nasty types be with one another. And let the rest of us be free from them.
